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Published: December 1st 2007
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For this blog entry we thought we would focus on our school, but first, a little background.
Geographically, the Anglican Diocese of Central Tanganyika covers the Dodoma Region, which includes both urban and rural parts. The region has a population of over 1.2 million people of which 500,000 are Anglicans. As both rural and urban districts of Dodoma are some of the least developed in the country and government secondary schools are very few in this area, the Diocese is heavily engaged in education, from kindergarten through to primary (up to Grade 7 equivalent) and secondary. The Diocese operates several schools of which the Canon Andrea Mwaka School (CAMS) where Gerry and I teach is one.
The other diocesan schools teach the Tanzanian curriculum and follow the Tanzanian school year, which begins in January. The CAMS school year, on the other hand, begins in early August. At CAMS we teach the British curriculum which leads to the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) at the end of Form 4 (Grade 11). Following Form 4, to complete secondary school, students need to go from CAMS to one of the other diocesan secondary schools or elsewhere to complete Forms 5
Nursery and Reception Classes
Mr Beales, who hails from New Zealand, and his reception class join the nursery class for their free-play time each day. and 6.
The other diocesan schools are staffed almost exclusively with Tanzanian teachers and the majority of their students are also Tanzanian. At CAMS we have teachers from various parts of the world including Australia, New Zealand, England and the US. Gerry and I are the only Canadians that we know of not just at CAMS but also anywhere in the Dodoma region. The one Tanzanian teacher on staff is in charge of the secondary component of the school.
Gerry is in charge of the CAMS Early Years Centre and I teach the math programme in the secondary school to the Grade 7 students as well as Forms 1 through 4. We have 160 students in all, the youngest being in Gerry’s Early Years class (pre-k 3 and 4 year olds) and the oldest being in my Form 4 class (Grade 11). While CAMS is a Christian school, we have a wide mix of Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh students. None of our students have English as a first language - they are all ESL. In most cases the first language is Swahili but we also have a number of students of south-Asian origin whose mother tongue is
from that part of the world. For the older students who I teach, with a few exceptions, language is not a problem. They have pretty good English skills. Almost none of Gerry’s charges, however, speak English. She has four Tanzanian teaching assistants who help her so that when language becomes an issue, she has backup. Some of our students come from families that are relatively well off, however, many are ‘sponsored’, that is their fees and other expenses are covered by a donor.
Our school day begins at 7:30 with a short staff meeting. Gerry’s programme runs from 9 to noon each day. For the secondary students, after a 10-minute form-time beginning at 7:45, we have five roughly one-hour periods with two breaks built in. Because it gets quite hot in the afternoon, the school day for students is over at 2pm.
By Tanzanian standards, CAMS is quite well equipped. The Early Years Centre is replete with toys and even has a swimming pool (actually it is a large concrete in-ground bath tub that Gerry allows 10 students in at a time.) Many of the textbooks we use have been donated to the school. Although there are classes
that have no textbooks and in one of my classes I do not have enough books for the students, in the rest of my classes I have an adequate supply. CAMS has a modest computer lab with 14 rather elderly PCs, all circa 1990s.
I have come to realize that while the materials available in a school are important to the programme, what is more important and what we have none of here is professional support for students - educational assessment, learning support, counseling. Of course, as teachers we do our best with what we have but I have students who I am certain, in another educational system would be fully assessed and then supported. In a country where fewer that 5% of the young people successfully complete secondary education I have to wonder how many students every year go by the wayside because they have not had the support they need to be successful in school.
So that is a little bit about CAMS. It is a great place to work and, I hope, to learn. We hope you enjoy the pictures.
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